For years, we have been told that India is going to trump China.

Every negative event around China (from COVID to Apple's cutback to tensions with US) is met with smug self satisfaction about an imminent shift in the balance of power towards India.

Unfortunately, it's not going to happen. Here's why:

1. Analysts have been predicting India's rise for decades now. From foreign leaders to stock market gurus and from MNC CEOs to media houses, "experts" have given many rosy forecasts in the last 25 years. And all have been proved wrong. Repeatedly. Take any new predictions about India's rise with a pinch of salt.

2. India's growth has been impressive in the last two decades, but China's has been in another league. Consider this: Twenty years ago, China's GDP, exports and manufacturing were 2x the size of India. Now they are all 5x.

3 China graduates nearly twice as many STEM students as India. Four of the 20 top tech firms are Chinese. China produces over half of all the world's 5G infrastructure. (India's share is 1%). China holds 66% of all AI patents compared with India's 3%.  Chinese apps like TikTok are global leaders. India has no such global tech offering... And it goes on and on

4.  Chinese workforce is more productive. It has managed to all but end abject poverty. In contrast India has high levels of poverty and malnutrition. A majority of working age women are absent from the workforce.

On top of these numbers, India's deep rooted caste system is an enemy of meritocracy, its massive bureaucracy stifles innovation while deeply embedding corruption, its elites are unwilling to address competing claims of multiple ethnic and religious groups.

India looks destined to be perennially the country of the future with that future never arriving.

The present, meanwhile, belongs to China.